


i cursed the breath of sea (spelled as poetry)

by oceanicinception



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poetic, Purple Prose, Sort of? - Freeform, basically just lucas being completely in love with eliott for 2000 words, lower case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanicinception/pseuds/oceanicinception
Summary: love is: leaving the dim lights in their kitchen on and propping open the bedroom door so that a small pool of light forms on the bed, colouring eliott’s face a darkened gold, to try and fight away the demons that seemed to plague eliott’s dreams, and his thoughts.or: an ode to lucas’ love for eliott
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 24
Kudos: 103





	i cursed the breath of sea (spelled as poetry)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the tumblr prompt “I’ll keep the lights on for you | even though it’s too bright for me | I listen to records with you | that I don’t like” which just immediately reminded me of elu.
> 
> I wrote this at like 2am when I was in a bit of a weird melancholy mood, and wanted to try writing in a more purple prose/poetic style. This is largely inspired by my own experience with depressive episodes and how they can affect those around you. 
> 
> I may come back to this and add a second part from Eliott’s perspective eventually, but for now I feel like it works as a one-shot. 
> 
> Title is a lyric from “Lantern” by The White Birch (the song used in the "Minutt for Minutt" clip in Skam) which I thought was fitting here.
> 
> Also, just as a tw: this fic depicts Eliott going through a depressive episode- there's nothing graphic and its really just alluded to for the most part, but just as a heads up.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

it scares him, sometimes, how much he loves eliott: the lengths he would go to for him. when he stops to think about it for too long he feels overwhelmed by it, washed out to sea by the waves of feeling he can feel crashing in his heart through all hours of the day.

as he lies there looking at him, an unmoving mountain of blankets beside him on the bed, he thinks: _if i could take away all of your pain i would in an instant_. there is no doubt in his mind of this.

_i would take all of it and bury it inside of me, hidden far away where it couldn’t get to you ever again. i would give up myself for your freedom over and over again if you asked it of me._

but he knows, of course, that he can’t. it is not his pain to hold, not his darkness to live in. he wishes more than anything, sometimes, that he could experience the throes of elliott’s mind, even just for one day, for one hour, but he also knows that this is not what love is.

love is: the soft silences of their room, late into the night when the summer breeze is coming slowly through the window to caress their skin, their tangled legs and exposed backs illuminated as if from within by the twinkling lights of the city outside.

love is: the way he listens quietly while eliott explains, or tries to explain, in broken sentences, long pauses and frustrated sighs, what it is like to be him, how he feels when his own mind grabs hold of his entire being, his very soul, and pulls and pulls and pulls and doesn’t let go until he is spit out on the other side of the tunnel, edges frayed and torn, leaving him to pick up the pieces.

he knows that he will never fully understand what it is like to go through life as eliott does, and it kills him, but he takes some comfort in the glimpse that these moments give him into elliott’s mind, into his heart.

love is: the ways that lucas knows he can help, the things that eliott had told him made him feel loved and made his heart feel lighter and his head feel clearer, in a whispered voice devoid of its usual inflections as he lay in bed unmoving, his eyes staring at a spot on the ceiling just to have something to look at other than the darkness that awaited him like a black hole behind his eyelids once he inevitably succumbed to his body’s exhaustion.

love is: the way he lies beside him on the bed, breathing slowly, offering nothing but his presence. running his fingers over eliott’s arms when he can stand to be touched: starting at the spot where his shoulder meets his neck and travelling downwards like a bird through a dark sky to where his hands are clenched in loose fists, the duvet wrinkled and stale weaved between them. gently trailing his hands through eliott’s hair, brushing it away from his face to watch his eyebrows furrow slowly, his eyelids flutter like wings hiding the stormy skies underneath, the tip of his nose wrinkle slightly. he feels the grease that has formed on the strands, twirling a piece between his thumb and forefinger in languid circles and pulling his hand away to watch the way his fingertips shine in the dim light of the moon filtering in through the curtained window. or later: listening to the creaking of the tap as he pulls eliott toward him gently to massage the molasses-thick white of his lavender shampoo into his hair, the warm water washing away the layers of the past few days like rain down a steel sewer grate.

love is: the way he stops by the store on his way home to get ingredients for elliott’s favorite meal, and in the way he brings a heaping plate into the bedroom in the shape of a heart, his own aching painfully in a way that causes his eyes to sting, just a bit, when eliott sits up and smiles slightly. he pushes away the way his heart clenches again at the sight of eliott picking up the fork and twirling it once between his tired fingers before spearing a piece of pasta and pulling it to his lips. he only manages to take a few bites before his eyelids fall again, and he pushes the porcelain across their bedside table as though needing to move it away from him, dropping the fork with a small clatter of metal. _désolé_ he says then, mouth pressed into the pillow, so quiet lucas almost doesn’t hear it. lucas thinks _don’t ever apologize for not being ok. not ever. not to me._ but his mouth doesn’t move past the first word, so he lets the things he wants to say hang in the air like suspended clouds on strings while he rubs soft circles onto eliott’s back before leaning in to drop a feather-light kiss on the skin of his shoulder, and he closes his eyes to pray that his love for the boy in front of him seeps through his skin, transferred from his mouth to eliott’s heart like a message for only him to hear, to feel.

love is: leaving the dim lights in their kitchen on and propping open the bedroom door so that a small pool of light forms on the bed, colouring eliott’s face a darkened gold, to try and fight away the demons that seemed to plague eliott’s dreams, and his thoughts. _i know they’re not, like, monsters under the bed or anything like that,_ lucas had said _but i thought the light might help_ ( _for when the light in your eyes, in your smile, in your laugh, in your soul, is not to be found,_ he had thought). _they don’t seem so different, sometimes,_ eliott had said, not looking at lucas, but running his thumb over where their hands were joined. and if, when lucas slips under the covers a few moments later, he has to turn into eliott’s chest and bury his face there, squinting his eyes shut to be able to sleep, he just smiles and nuzzles his nose further into the soft and worn fabric of his shirt.

love is: days later, when eliott has found the energy to sit in the living room again, just sitting on the couch, having shook his head when lucas had asked if he wanted to watch a film, if he wanted him to bring him his sketchpad and pencils. lucas is hit with how eliott almost feels like a different person to him during these times: how his usual passion for life is snuffed out like a candle flame between wet fingers, leaving only the hollow shell of the trailing smoke behind. he pads over to the couch then, having just finished drying the dishes, and grabs eliott’s hands loosely to pull him up, his eyebrows quirking slightly in confusion. he takes a moment to wrap his arms around him, then, leaning his head onto eliott’s shoulder and pressing the lines of his smile into the empty space there, filling it in. he feels eliott’s body sigh: shake like the floor of the earth and then settle, the tension seeping out suddenly. _come on_ he whispers while bringing his head up: _ok_ eliott says, and follows.

love is: telling eliott to close his eyes even though he knows he can probably still hear the quiet shuffling of vinyl brushing against stiff cardboard, the telltale _click_ of a knob being turned, the drop of the needle giving way to fuzzy, warm static before the music starts. he turns around then, to see that eliott’s eyes are already open, and shining in the way they often do during moments like these, saying: _thank you. for being you. i love you._ he pulls eliott back to him again, briefly entertaining the thought of _this is where he(i) belong(s), in my(his) arms with the crook of my(his) neck guarding his(my) head,_ and wraps his arms around his neck, clasping them behind his back loosely and starting to steer them across the floor, swaying gently. he feels eliott move his hands up to his waist then, and takes it as a replacement for the way he would normally be teasing lucas by now, smirking and asking _i thought you hated this song? i do,_ lucas would say then, in a straightforward tone that would make eliott laugh suddenly, loudly, covering his mouth with the knuckles of one hand. ( _but for you, for you i would listen to it on repeat if it made you happy. i want to know all of you._ he wouldn’t say, but the words would resound through his head, as loud as though he had shouted them in a stadium). imagining it in his head makes his heart clench a bit, the ache becoming overpowering before dying down again. he knows that these times always come and go, and focuses on the fact that this will go.

for now, he lets his mind go blank as he closes his eyes and leans sideways into eliott’s ear, his hair softly tickling his cheek as they move. he listens to the soft sounds of the music floating through their apartment then, underneath a faint hint of static, a buzzing. but mostly, he listens to the sounds their feet make as they touch the floor, the sound of eliott breathing through his nose. the feeling of their chests pressed together, of eliott’s face pressed into his neck, of a nose brushing against his collarbone. the dull ache in his toes when eliott steps on his foot by accident.

love is: the way the fairy lights in their kitchen twinkle brightly, emitting a soft glow on the walls, revealing pieces of them, of eliott, of lucas, of eliott and lucas: the collection of little raccoons and hedgehogs depicted on scraps of paper. the piece of the mural they had stolen from the wall before eliott graduated. the black lines and dots of “i love you” sprawled across crisp, white paper, of “apollo and hyacinth: intrada” beside it. of all the ways that their lives had and were joined together, pieces intertwining themselves like parts of a symphony, slowly becoming one.

love is also: the way he thinks then, _i love you. i’m so happy that i met you. that you came, and that you saved me. and that i saved you. i love you._ he says the words out loud, this time, speaking them softly into eliott’s hair, into the living room. and he grabs on tighter when he feels the warm, wet of eliott’s tears forming on his shirt. he rubs his hand up and down his back as he cries silently, until all he can hear are occasional sniffles. _moi aussi_. eliott lets out, a watery exhale into lucas mouth before he joins their lips together. _moi aussi. moi aussi. moi aussi._

_love is: this. love is them._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Here’s my tumblr if anyone wants to come chat: [oceanicinception](https://oceanicinception.tumblr.com)


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